Meet-a-Member | Charlie Rosenbury

November 8, 2017 | Branden Schwab

Join us as we interview an SGFC founder and the owner of Self about being a part of Springfield’s creative community. Get the scoop on Charlie’s go-to digital tools, his dreams of extraterrestrial exploration, and how he stays grounded by being involved with local organizations that are making an impact here on Earth.

Where are you from? Born and raised SGF.

What do you do? And how long have you been doing it? I own an interactive development company, which means if it’s interactive and digital, we can build it. I’ve been programming since middle school when my dad brought home a PC.

Are you locally based and travel? Yes, we are locally based but haven’t traveled more than 3 hours for work.

Do you focus on Downtown, C-Street, Southside, etc? Our office is downtown. While the benefits of being an eFactory tenant are a large part of this, I would be hesitant to work anywhere besides central SGF.

What do you love about your job and working “here” (Downtown, Springfield, the Midwest)? Downtown is just so alive. When I go out to lunch or am walking, I almost always see a friendly face. Springfield, in general, is a great place to raise a family and own a business. The people are generally friendly and welcoming, and the cost of living to quality of life ratio is hard to beat.

Got any fun facts? My goto fact is my Facebook “hacking” story. In 2005, I found a way to automate messaging everyone on Facebook and did so, requesting that they add me as a friend. I ended up with about 75,000 friends (and lots of hate mail) until Facebook deleted my account.

What did you want to be when you were growing up? I wanted to be so many things: writer, illustrator, animator, video game developer, movie maker, musician, astronaut. Today, I’m maybe slightly above average on most of these things. Except for astronaut… probably just average astronaut skills.

How long have you been involved with SFGC? I was on the founding board, so a few years! According to my calendar, that initial brainstorming session was April 10, 2014 at Scotch & Soda.

How long have you been in the Queen City? ~29

What are some of your favorite creative tools? On my Mac, you will find Gmail, Asana, and Sublime Text open at all times. We’re nailing down our tools and processes at Self, and two services I’ve recently become fond of are Streak CRM (awesome, customizable CRM and email management that lives inside of Gmail) and Zenkit (Trello with more power but less visual appeal). I don’t have many analog tools/implements/mediums.

And you favorite workspace artifact? The giant, rasterbated image of The Dude. He was born in my loft downtown in 2007 where he hung on the wall until 2011. He then lived in the men’s restroom at 40Digits on C-Street, later following us to the Downtown location. We were reunited when he made the trip down Boonville to the Self office in July 2017, and few things in my life have felt so right.